It’s Mailbox Monday! That means it’s time to answer YOUR questions!
Hello and welcome to another Mailbox Monday!
What a difference a week makes! Last week I complained of not having a good question to answer, and YOU answered with a deluge!
And although I’m set for a while here, I’m always happy to add YOUR question to the queue. Simply send your question on marketing, selling, advertising, copywriting, business, or life itself on over to [email protected]. I’ll give you my answer — whether you like it or not!
Now for today’s question… And it’s a sensitive one!
So I agreed on confidentiality with “Chris,” the reader who sent it in…
Hi Roy,
Loving your emails. You rock.
I’m in a coaching program, and there’s not enough accountability. How can I provide this feedback I need in a Positive way?
Chris
This is a bit of a tricky question to answer, but I’m going to come at it from a few angles for at least a thorough try…
First, I’m going to talk about my coaching program, and the fact that accountability is NOT one of my core promises…
I’ll note that this Chris is NOT talking about my coaching program, although this question would have been a somewhat tactful way to broach the subject!
And I’m not just trying to plug my coaching program, but if you want to learn more you can read about it here.
Rather, when I sell my coaching program, I don’t talk about accountability as being one of the core promises.
And if I were in your situation, Chris, before anything, if possible, I would double-check whether I bought into this coaching program on the stated promise of accountability, or on MY HOPE for accountability. There’s a big difference there.
In my coaching I do provide SOME accountability. I’ve reached out to folks when I haven’t heard from them — just to make sure they were still taking action.
But I don’t want it to be my responsibility to stay on top of each of my coaching students. I prefer a much more hands-off or self-directed approach. YES, I will initiate action. But for the most part, that’s not the role I promise.
Rather, in my coaching, I want you to take responsibility yourself for creating your success — and I’m your always-available lifeline (for 12 months) to provide insight, experience, advice, and recommendations for the actions you want to take and the results you want to achieve.
I’ve noticed when I spend a bunch of money to go to an event, for example, I up my personal responsibility to create results from it. I hold myself personally accountable for getting ROI out of it. The same is true for coaching arrangements.
That’s the type of approach I want my folks taking to my coaching. I’m there for you 100% — but you have to raise your hand and ask for it.
That said, some coaching programs are sold on the 180-degree opposite premise. They’re sold on the idea of, “I’m going to hold your hand to help you make it happen.”
Neither approach is better or worse — it’s a different solution for a different person.
But as the buyer of coaching programs, you have to make sure you’re buying what you want and need, and getting what you bought. And as copywriters and marketers we should know that what people think they’re buying is not always what’s promised — our imaginations can get the best of us in a great sales pitch!
And that’s why I make this the first and most important caveat to my answer — make sure what you think you bought matches what was promised. Hopefully the sales copy for the coaching program is still out there on the web for you to see — and you can double-check.
From this point forward, I’m going to assume your question comes out of the promise being made and not fulfilled. (I actually assumed it beforehand, but needed to address this point on the off chance that it was relevant.)
I think you need to be both gentle and direct in addressing this…
Just about the worst thing you could do, even if it’s true, is to go after your coach and say, “Hey, you promised me this and you suck at fulfilling this promise!” Even if it’s true.
Remember, your coach is a human being, too.
And the best way to get a human being to do things for you is to make them believe you’re on their side (and really, you are).
Before we get into what to say, I want to address the actual communication technology used for this important feedback…
In our modern world, it gets easy to defer to things like email and other digital text-based communication. Especially with sensitive feedback, where it may feel a little uncomfortable to deliver it.
You have to fight the urge on this.
(And I could easily put “me” in for “you,” because I have to remind myself of this too — but then again, “Me have to fight the urge on this,” makes me sound like Cookie Monster. Oh boy… I digress!)
It’s so easy for the intricacies of communication to be misread or missed completely with text-only communication. And that seems to be doubly so with digital communication.
You want to TALK to the person. In-person would be great — although most coaching relationships today occur over distances that prevent this. If in-person is not possible, pick up the phone.
It’s far easier to sense misunderstanding and adapt to the conversation if you’re on the phone.
YES, I know as a writer (which I think you are, Chris), it’s far easier to put all your thoughts together in a written way. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to get better results by taking notes on what you want to say and then embracing the uncertainty of unscripted conversation.
Now for what to say…
In short, just tell it like it is. And make it about wanting the best possible future outcome for EVERYBODY in the situation.
And you don’t have to use the sandwich technique, where you smash negative feedback between two positives — although you can if it’s comfortable and unforced. Radical honesty with a desire for a positive outcome is far more powerful than some feedback gimmick they teach in an MBA classroom.
Here’s an idea of what I’d say…
“I have some feedback that I feel is important to talk to you about. And before I share it, I hope you understand I wanted to talk to you about this hoping to make the future of our coaching relationship the best it can be.
“Part of the reason I signed up for this coaching program was because of the the accountability structure that was promised. Specifically, I thought the [insert item that was promised but that’s not being fulfilled, e.g. ‘weekly checkup calls’] would really help me [explain the desired outcome, e.g. ‘get more writing done, more consistently, every week’]. This was especially important to me because [your reason why, e.g. ‘I feel that my writing output is inconsistent without someone to check in on me, and that was what I thought would be most helpful in this program’].
“And while I’m getting value from other elements of the coaching program, I feel that going forward I’m really going to need that from you to get the best results here. And of course, it’s in both our best interests for me to get stellar results from our coaching relationship!
“So I wonder if you have any ideas of what we can do together to make sure this is a substantial part of what we do going forward?”
This doesn’t blame. It doesn’t make it personal. It does point out that you’re not getting what you were promised — but it does it in a gentle way. And it shows what it would mean to you and what benefit it would have to the coach to get that original promise fulfilled.
You don’t necessarily need to adapt what I’ve written word-for-word — in fact, you should do it in your own words. And you should probably write out what you want to say, even if you’re going to call them, just to mentally prepare for the conversation.
A major risk you should be prepared for…
There is a risk your coach will kind of blow up on you. There is the risk that they have a fragile ego, and will take it personally. The approach I’ve written above is, in my experience, the best way to manage fragile egos (and it works for healthy ones, too). However, by their very nature, a fragile ego is fragile. Which means you can offend them when you’re trying not to.
In addition to positive, hopeful preparation, it will be helpful to spend at least a few minutes thinking about how you’ll respond if the person reacts negatively to your best attempt at addressing this with grace.
If they take it personally and lash out, how can you face that with grace? And what does it mean for the rest of your coaching arrangement?
You don’t prepare for disaster because you hope for one — but if you don’t prepare for disaster and one comes, its impacts will be much worse.
Think about the worst possible way they could respond — where it would be so bad you’d have to simply walk away and call the coaching program a total loss. How would you respond in this situation? What would you do? How would you address that?
If you prepare for a good outcome and the worst, you’ll be able to handle just about anything that will come from the conversation.
After reading this, it will probably only take another 10 minutes to prepare…
Then, just do it — make the conversation happen.
What’s in the future is far easier to fear than what’s already happened.
This operates on the same principle of “It’s far easier to beg forgiveness than ask for permission.” Responding to what happens in the conversation is easy — getting it started in the first part takes some courage. Muster up the courage now to have the conversation as soon as possible. Get it behind you.
One more piece of advice: create a paper trail…
No matter what comes of the conversation, tell them you’re going to follow up with an email. Send them a note afterward telling them you were happy to have the conversation, and briefly restate the crux of what was discussed, and any agreements you made that are relevant going forward. They don’t have to respond to it — and certainly don’t force them to sign anything.
The purpose of this note is to simply have something to refer back to if this continues to be a problem.
It also serves as a sign you’re on top of this, and hopefully it will provide them with some motivation and accountability to give YOU the accountability you were hoping for.
As you read this, I hope you apply it to all sorts of situations…
We had a neighboring family move in nearby that we really like. They have an older dog who is mostly harmless. And they let the dog wander (they don’t have a fence in their back yard). This didn’t bother us at first, but the dog started peeing and pooping in our yard. The pee was making dead spots in the grass, and the poop was a nasty, messy toddler foot waiting to happen.
It’s a conversation that sucks to have (and I told them so — another good bit of honesty to throw in if appropriate). But I broached the subject in a very similar way as described above. They understood, and immediately that dog was allowed to wander far less.
It wasn’t an easy conversation to have — but simply stepping up and having the conversation made a huge difference.
While this conversation could create a little breakthrough in itself, learning how to have these whenever you need to can make a huge difference in your life over the long run.
I still look back at the conversations I should have had, and wonder what would have happened if I mustered the confidence then. And look back at the ones that I did have, and that I’m still enjoying the fruits today.
I hope from today forward it’s a little easier for you to have these conversations yourself.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
